Hey everybody,
I'm announcing the release of Edit
this Page (ETP) 1.0, a new CMS for OpenACS 4 built by
Luke Pond with important help from
Dave Hill and
Pat Colgan.
To get the APM, read the documentation
and see some demos, visit http://ETP.museatech.net
Luke's description of ETP can be found at the site, but here it is
for those eager to read it before they open their browsers:
Background
I tried using the ArsDigita CMS that was included in ACS 4.2 and
found myself wanting something a lot more stripped down and easier to
learn. I spent about 8 hours on it and never really understood how to
get it to actually deliver a page with some content that I'd entered.
It frustrated me that in order to create content types of my own, I'd
have to extend the data model with new tables, views, and pl/sql
routines. I also thought that it was poorly integrated with the rest
of the ACS: it stored its own folder hierarchy rather than using the
Site Map feature like every other ACS package. And, yes, the user
interface with frames and javascript didn't brighten my day.
In building Edit This Page with OpenACS 4 I tried to overcome these
problems. It's quick to get started editing content on your website.
You can add a new content type (extending the list of content
attributes available to your page template) by calling a single tcl
function at server startup. And each level of the hierarchy on the
site you build is another package instance, easily comprehensible by
looking at the Site Map, in the context of all the other non-CMS
packages you may be using.
ETP uses the same data model that evolved along with the ArsDigita
CMS, which is found in the acs-content-repository package. Installing
ETP does not create any tables. The "right thing to do" with all
packages built for OpenACS 4 is to make use of the standard content
repository tables, and ETP is no exception. It therefore benefits
from the attention paid by the community to this data model, which
includes search engine integration among other good things.
Currently, ETP only works with OACS4 for PG.
I hope everyone in the community gives it a run! As with everything
in OACS 4, it needs some testing and suggestions for improvements. So
we're eager to hear your comments!
talli